Dispersing the Opacity of Transparency in Journalism on the Appeal of Different Forms of Transparency to the General Public

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the kinds of transparency that appeal to different parts of the public and the extent to which transparency can be a remedy for declining trust in journalism. It uses a representative survey of Swedes, and the results show that there are three distinct forms of transparency, including the previously unreported ambient transparency, and that they appeal to different people. News consumption or social media use has little or no effect on transparency. The strongest positive effect on transparency comes from appreciation of the current quality of journalistic performance, high trust in journalists and media, and having news media and authorities as the preferred channels of information. Those most skeptical about journalism are also least positive about transparency. The results suggest that transparency has very limited reach as a cure for declining trust in, and the trustworthiness of, journalism, possibly since the acts of transparency themselves remain non-transparent.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalistic performance
• journalistic norms
• survey
• transparency
• trust
• trustworthiness

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and Associate professor Dr Johan Lindell and Assistant professor Dr Raul Ferrer Conill for their comments on earlier versions for this manuscript. The author would also like to thank Associate professor Dr Christer Clerwall for the help with collecting the data.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet [grant number 421-2012-1194].